Tareasa Johson gets her own show thanks to Tiktok

For over eight hours, Tareasa Johnson has been tearing apart her relationship with her ex-husband on Tiktok – and millions are hanging on her every word. “She’s a born storyteller,” enthuses Time. In 2020, the American from Atlanta started a 50-part video series called “Who the hell did I marry?!?” In the first part, she admits: “I missed so many red flags, you must think I’m colorblind.”

Since then, her TikTok following has grown from 8,000 to 3.6 million and her videos have been played over 400 million times. That’s why several production studios recently entered into a bidding war for the right to film the story as a TV series. ABC Signature won the bid, and actress Natasha Rothwell (43) will play Johnson, as Variety reports. It’s the best example of how a viral hit on social media can be a springboard to Hollywood.

Generation Alpha is currently celebrating the YouTube series “Skibidi Toilet” with its humanoid toilet bowls that want to take over the world. Five years ago, no one in Hollywood would have been interested in this story, US marketing professor Charles Lindsey told the New York Times. But recently, star director Michael Bay (59) announced that he wants to turn the YouTube show with the talking toilets into a kind of second Marvel universe. The entire media sector is much more interconnected and the crossover potential has increased.

“Social media stars are no longer laughed at in Hollywood,” Christian Jungen also told 20 Minuten. The director of the Zurich Film Festival sees parallels with the initial reluctance to bring adaptations of video games to cinemas. “Similar to games, which were also demonized, Hollywood makes social media personalities socially acceptable when they appeal to audiences and make the cash registers ring.” One example of this is the gamer Valkyrae (32), who became so famous thanks to her live stream on YouTube that she will now be seen in the 2025 movie “Minecraft” alongside “Aquaman” star Jason Momoa.

Today, actors such as George Clooney (63) and Brad Pitt (60) are also trained by PR agencies to generate attention on social media. At the Venice Film Festival, for example, they managed to do this with a dance on the red carpet.

To stand out in the noise of social media, Jungen advises that studios take inspiration from sports when marketing their products. “Compared to soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo or basketball player LeBron James, Hollywood stars still seem like bratty boys on social media.” While Ronaldo holds the record with 639 million followers on Instagram, Pitt and Clooney don’t even have an account.